A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY "I’d like to start a religion. That’s where the
money is." - L. Ron Hubbard to Lloyd Eshbach in 1949, quoted by Eshbach in
OVER MY SHOULDER: REFLECTIONS ON A SCIENCE FICTION ERA. Donald M.
Grant Publisher, 1983 ____________________

L. Ron Hubbard established the Church of Scientology (CoS) in
1954 against the following backdrop: He had dropped out of college
with failing grades. Although he would later claim a distinguished
wartime naval career, Hubbard in fact never saw combat and left the
US Navy petitioning the Veterans Administration for psychiatric
care. Two bigamous marriages failed. He found success writing
pulp/science fiction, but as he declared in the late 1940s: "Writing
for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a
million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."
(1)

Hubbard took up ritual magic, the occult and hypnosis, giving
demonstrations of hypnosis in 1948 and writing to his literary agent
about a therapy system he was working on that had tremendous
promotional and sales potential. (2) Piecing together hypnotic
techniques, Freudian theories, Buddhist concepts and elements of
other philosophies and practices, Hubbard came up with Dianetics. He
published DIANETICS: THE MODERN SCIENCE OF MENTAL HEALTH in 1950.

In Dianetic practice the "patient," working with a partner called an
"auditor" recalls past painful experiences in reverse chronological
sequence, supposedly erasing their negative effects and attaining a
state called "clear," allegedly free from all ills. (3) The auditor
carefully records any intimate revelations, including sexual or
criminal activities and marital or family troubles; these records
are kept on file.

Hubbard represented Dianetics as a mental health therapy. He
asserted that it was scientifically based and developed through
careful research, and his use of the word "patient" suggests that he
anticipated acceptance of Dianetics by the medical profession. But
he never produced copies of any research protocol. Dianetics was
opposed immediately by the American Medical Association and the
American Psychological Association, the latter recommending that its
members limit use of Dianetic techniques to investigation only,
until Hubbard’s claimed results could be corroborated. (4)

The public, however, made the book a bestseller, and it seemed that
Hubbard’s ship had come in.

He created the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation to promulgate
his theories and techniques.

With auditors repeatedly asking patients in trance state to recall
"earlier similar incidents," patients began to report past lifetime
experiences. Hubbard incorporated belief in past lives into his
evolving ideology, discussing the concept in his second Dianetics
book, SCIENCE OF SURVIVAL.

The Hubbard Foundation began to collapse as the initial Dianetics
craze wore off, and Hubbard’s new-found emphasis on past lives
exacerbated tensions with the Foundation’s financial partners. By
1952 Hubbard was penniless and had lost control of Dianetics.

Scientology is Born

Hubbard became interested in a type of lie detector called the
"electropsychometer" that he believed would yield better results in
auditing. He obtained a franchise for this device, which he renamed
the Hubbard Electrometer, or E-meter. He began calling patients
"pre-clears" and "within six weeks had created a new subject
apparently out of thin air." (5)

Hubbard called his new subject Scientology and in introducing it, he
claimed to have discovered the human soul. Whereas Dianetics had
addressed the body, Scientology involved freeing souls (which
Hubbard called "thetans") from supposed entrapment in the physical
or material world and restoring their alleged supernatural powers.

Hubbard established a headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, awarded
himself the degree of D.Scn. (Doctor of Scientology) and in May 1952
incorporated the Hubbard Association of Scientologists International
under the personal control of himself and his third wife, Mary Sue.
The AMA meanwhile continued its opposition to Dianetics and
Scientology.

In 1953 Hubbard regained control of Dianetics after a protracted
legal battle and incorporated the Church of Scientology, Church of
American Science and Church of Spiritual Engineering. In 1954 he
incorporated the Church of Scientology of California, which became
the mother church. In 1956 the church was granted US federal
tax-exempt status.

In 1957, passing himself off as a nuclear physicist, Hubbard gave a
series of lectures in London on "nuclear radiation and health,"
promoting a vitamin compound which he claimed cured both "radiation
sickness" and cancer. Also that year the CIA began a file on him.

Hubbard repeatedly wrote to the FBI with complaints of Communist and
Nazi persecution. The Bureau considered him a mental case, but kept
a file on him and would later, as his organization grew, investigate
him actively...abusively, Scientologists maintain. (6) (7)

International Expansion

In 1959 Hubbard moved to England and bought Saint Hill Mansion in
Sussex, from which he would direct international operations and
expansion of the CoS until 1967. The 1960s saw the introduction of
"Ethics" procedures, which include harsh punishments (even for
children) and the "disconnection" policy, which requires
Scientologists to sever ties with family and friends critical of
Scientology.

Although the essentials of Scientology had been thoroughly presented
early on, Hubbard turned out a steady stream of books and audio
tapes that are aggressively marketed to his followers. He created
systems of "Security Checks" in which members are interrogated to
ensure loyalty and extract confessions. He produced reams of policy
directives on subjects varying from Scientology "tech" (technology)
to church management to approved cleaning solvents to his own recipe
for baby formula; all these missives are considered by CoS members
to be sacred scripture.

In the late 1960s Hubbard released the "upper levels."
Scientologists who had spent hundreds or thousands of hours vainly
pursuing often-promised supernatural abilities were guaranteed that
these procedures would finally deliver on the promise. Based on a
science-fiction-like story taking place millions of years ago and
involving a cruel Galactic despot named Xenu and his evil minions
(elsewhere identified as present-day Christian clergy and
psychiatrists), the upper levels are kept secret until a member is
deemed ready to receive them. The estimated cost from beginning
Scientology courses through completion of the upper levels is today
$300,000 - $500,000 in US dollars.

In 1967 the IRS stripped Scientology’s mother church of its
tax-exempt status. With his organization coming under increasing
scrutiny from a variety of governments and tax woes abounding,
Hubbard wrote his famous "Fair Game" law, which states that anyone
named an enemy of Scientology "may be tricked, sued, lied to or
destroyed." (8) A year later, he would issue a directive canceling
use of the term, "Fair Game," (due to negative publicity) but making
plain that attacks on Scientology’s perceived enemies were to
continue. (9)

In mid-1967 Hubbard bought three ships and put to sea with a small
cadre of followers. Styling himself "the Commodore," he spent the
next several years wandering the Atlantic, pursued by imaginary Reds
and Nazis and attended by "Commodore’s Messengers," teenaged girls
dressed in white hot pants who waited on him hand and foot, bathing
and dressing him and even catching the ash from his cigarettes. He
had frequent screaming tantrums and instituted brutal punishments
such as incarceration in the ship’s filthy chain-locker for days or
weeks at a time and "overboarding," in which errant crew members
were blindfolded, bound and thrown overboard, dropping up to 40 ft.
into the cold sea and hoping not to hit the side of the ship with
its razor-sharp barnacles on the way down. These punishments
applied to children as well as to adults.

Hubbard made bungling attempts to take over Morocco and Rhodesia and
was banned from further entry into Britain. He began the Sea
Organization (SO), whose members wear pseudo-naval uniforms, adopt
naval ranks, sign billion year contracts and are pressured to have
abortions when they become pregnant because children are perceived
as interfering with their SO obligations. Hubbard created the
infamously abusive Rehabilitation Project Force as a special
punishment for SO members who fail to follow orders, make mistakes
or fall short of production goals.

Going ReligiousDuring the early 1970s the IRS "proved that Hubbard was
skimming millions of dollars from the church, laundering the money
through dummy corporations in Panama and stashing it in Swiss bank
accounts. Moreover, church members stole IRS documents, filed false
tax returns and harassed the agency’s employees." (10)

A US federal court in 1971 ruled that Hubbard’s medical claims were
bogus and that E-meter auditing could not be called a scientific
treatment. The CoS responded by "going fully religious, seeking
First Amendment protection...counselors started sporting clerical
collars. Chapels were built, franchises became ‘missions,’ fees
became ‘fixed donations,’ and Hubbard’s comic-book cosmology became
‘sacred scriptures.’" (11)

After years of running the Scientology organization from aboard his
flagship, the Apollo, in 1975 Hubbard bought the Fort
Harrison Hotel and a former bank building in downtown Clearwater,
Florida under the name United Churches of Florida, to hide
Scientology’s connection. He moved his crew to Clearwater,
establishing the Flagship Land Base, a.k.a. "Flag."

While the Church of Scientology continued to expand, its private
intelligence agency known as the Guardian’s Office (GO) ran
cloak-and-dagger operations against the mayor of Clearwater, various
governmental agencies and anyone else perceived as in their way.

Hubbard had established the GO in 1966 for internal and external
security purposes. The GO’s purview included attacking critics,
keeping members in line and silencing defectors. GO agents "stole
medical files, sent out anonymous smear letters, framed critics for
criminal acts, blackmailed, bugged and burgled opponents, and
infiltrated government offices stealing thousands of files...Critics
were to be driven to breakdown or harassed into silence." (12)
Eventually, in the early 1980s, eleven GO officials, including
Hubbard’s wife, were imprisoned following a massive bugging and
burgling operation against government offices across the US that
Hubbard had personally created and code-named "Operation Snow
White." Hubbard, himself was named as an unindicted co-conspirator
but escaped justice because no one could find him.

Almost from the beginning, Hubbard had been in trouble with the law.
In 1951 the New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners brought
proceedings against him for teaching medicine without a license; he
fled to Los Angeles to escape prosecution. His organizations were
repeatedly charged with practicing medicine without a license;
E-meters and vitamin compounds were seized. The FDA accused
Scientology of falsely claiming the E-meter could cure medical
ailments and all E-meters were required to carry labels disavowing
such claims.

At various times, Hubbard (and/or the church) was investigated by
the US Justice Department, the FBI, FDA, CIA, IRS, NSA, Bureau of
Customs, DEA, DOD, the Secret Service, the US Post Office, INS,
BATF, Department of Labor, police departments of various US cities
as well as Interpol and a host of other governmental agencies
worldwide. Hubbard was convicted in absentia of fraud in France. The
Church of Scientology was convicted of breach of the public trust
and infiltration of government offices in Canada. Scientology was
banned by the state of Victoria, Australia. Hubbard attributed all
these events to widespread plotting by Russian communists,
neofascists, bankers, the media, the IRS, Christian clergy, fiendish
extraterrestrials and the psychiatric profession, which he
considered his arch enemy.

Scientology Post-Hubbard

Hubbard went into seclusion following the "Operation Snow White"
debacle and in the early 1980s David Miscavige, a second-generation
Scientologist, took the reins of Scientology at age 21. At that time
"...high-level defectors [were] accusing Hubbard of having stolen as
much as $200 million from the church [and] the IRS was seeking an
indictment of Hubbard for tax fraud. Scientology members ‘worked day
and night’ shredding documents the IRS sought," (13) according to a
defector. Hubbard died in 1986 before the criminal case could be
prosecuted.

During the power struggles and purges of the 1980s, many people left
the church. Some established independent organizations based on
Hubbard’s writings. The CoS quickly undertook mass copyrighting of
all Hubbard materials and took legal steps to shut down the
independents. In 1983 the Office of Special Affairs was created to
carry on the purposes of the defunct Guardian’s Office. (14)

In 1991 the internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (A.R.S.)
appeared. Scientology immediately pounced, but the church’s
heavy-handed attempts to shut down A.R.S. failed. The conflict
attracted the attention of free speech advocates worldwide and
sparked a proliferation of anti-Scientology newsgroups and websites.

In 1993 the beleaguered IRS and the Church of Scientology
International reached an agreement, the terms of which were kept
secret but were leaked to THE WALL STREET JOURNALfour years
later. Per the agreement, the church gained tax-exempt status for
itself and its subsidiaries and in return agreed to drop the
lawsuits and settle its back tax obligations with a payment of $12.5
million -- a fraction of the estimated amount owed. Many questions
have been raised about provisions of this agreement, however the IRS
and CoS maintain that it is confidential and will not discuss it.
(16)

Scientologists have sought to undermine anti-cult groups by
infiltrating them or shutting them down outright. Multiple lawsuits
were filed against the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), which was for
20 years the US’s best known resource for information and advice on
religious cults. CAN’s legal fees forced it into bankruptcy; the
rights to CAN’s name, logo and hotline number were bought by a
Scientologist in bankruptcy court and the new CAN is staffed by
Scientologists.

The CoS relies heavily on celebrity spokespeople and front groups
for favorable publicity and recruiting. A number of organizations
working in the areas of literacy, drug counseling, human rights, and
business and management techniques, while not legally connected to
the Church of Scientology, promote Hubbard’s philosophy and draw
people into the church. The CoS capitalized on the Sept. 11, 2001
World Trade Center tragedy, with its corps of "Volunteer Ministers"
setting up a flurry of centers to help/recruit traumatized emergency
workers and grieving families, while simultaneously interfering with
mental health professionals wherever possible. (17) And US troops
returning from service in Iraq have apparently been targeted for
recruitment into the church. (18).

Governments in France, Germany, Australia, Israel, Spain, Canada,
Greece, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, England and
elsewhere have taken actions to protect their citizens from
exploitation by religious cults, with Scientology frequently a focus
of concern.

In recent years, hundreds of longtime Scientologists have quit the
church (many charging emotional and physical abuse) and are
criticizing it, despite the CoS’s well known reputation for
ruthlessly harassing critics. (19) (20) Some have continued
practicing Scientology outside the CoS. Others have sued the church
and won; most notable perhaps is Lawrence Wollersheim, who was paid
over $8 million by the church in 2003 after winning a case in which
he claimed that Scientology practices had nearly driven him to
suicide.

In 2003 Fox News and other media outlets reported that the Church of
Scientology has begun requiring its members to sign a release form
agreeing to be held against their will for indefinite periods,
isolated from friends and family and denied access to medical care
(particularly psychiatric care) and absolving the church of
responsibility for any resultant harm. (21) The document was
apparently drawn up in response to a wrongful-death suit brought
against the church in 1997 by the family of Lisa McPherson, a
36-year-old Scientologist who died in 1995 after being held in
isolation for 17 days while undergoing Scientology "processes" at
the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater. At the time of her death, she
was comatose, severely dehydrated and covered in cockroach bites.
Following a seven-year legal battle, an out-of-court agreement
settling the suit was reached in May 2004; the terms of this
agreement were sealed. (22)

Today, directly across the street from the Fort Harrison Hotel,
where Lisa McPherson suffered and died, Scientology’s new
380,000-square-foot headquarters is under construction. It is called
the "Super Power" building, after the "Super Power Rundown"
("rundown" in Scientology parlance = a series of steps designed to
produce a certain result) which, according to Hubbard, "consists of
12 separate high power rundowns which are brand new and enter realms
of the tech never before approached... [giving a Scientologist] the
super powers of infinity." (23)

"ENEMY SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or
injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of
the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed."
[SP = Suppressive Person a.k.a. critic of Scientology]

"The practice of declaring people FAIR GAME will cease. FAIR GAME
may not appear on any Ethics Order. It causes bad public relations.
This P/L does not cancel any policy on the treatment or handling of
an SP."

Paulette Cooper. THE SCANDAL OF SCIENTOLOGY. 1970. Web edition
November 1997. Cooper’s groundbreaking book on Scientology
precipitated a 15-year ordeal of harassment by the Church of
Scientology that included nineteen lawsuits, theft, malicious
prosection and framing her for bomb threats.
http://tinyurl.com/ypk3k

"Cult Awareness Network now in the hands of Scientology." Online
notice at the American Family Foundation website:
http://tinyurl.com/37kep

"Human rights group in hands of a cult."IOL World online
news service, June 16, 2000. French anti-cult official claims that
the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights has been
infiltrated by the Church of Scientology.
http://tinyurl.com/2g595

Stephen A. Kent, "The Creation of ‘Religious’ Scientology." Paper
presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion,
1992. Published in RELIGIOUS STUDIES AND THEOLOGY, Vol. 18, No. 2,
December 1999, pp. 97-126. This paper references L. Ron Hubbard’s
Professional Auditor’s Bulletin, No. 31, 23 July 1954, "Duplication"
which describes Hubbard’s belief that Christian clergy and
psychiatrists "implanted" thetans (Scientology’s term for the soul)
with false and misleading information in the cosmological past and
that both occupations continue to implant people today.
http://tinyurl.com/22xt4

John A. Lee. LEE REPORT ON DIANETICS AND SCIENTOLOGY. This is
chapter 4 of SECTARIAN HEALERS AND HYPNOTHERAPY, a study for the
Committee on the Healing Arts, Canadian government. Ontario, 1970.
http://tinyurl.com/3hlyr

Bette Swenson Orsini and Charles Stafford won a Pulitzer Prize in
1980 for their 14-part investigation of the Church of Scientology
for the ST. PETERSBURG [FLORIDA] TIMES.
http://tinyurl.com/35jbv

REPORT OF THE BOARD OF ENQUIRY INTO SCIENTOLOGY, by Kevin Victor
Anderson, Q.C. Published 1965 by the State of Victoria, Australia.
Also known as the "Anderson Report." Exhaustive report on
Scientology.
http://tinyurl.com/yq6co

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